In a quiet shift from last year's rupture, the United States is signaling its readiness to rejoin one of the world's most critical vaccine networks—and the WHO's chief sees it as a sign of something larger. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Washington would "re-engage" with Gavi, the alliance that pools governments and private donors to help developing countries access vaccines against some of humanity's deadliest infectious diseases. The announcement matters because it reverses a decision that shook global health: just twelve months ago, the Trump administration yanked $1.58 billion in support from the organization, citing unsubstantiated safety concerns raised by vaccine-skeptic health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Gavi's work reaches roughly half the world's children, protecting them against diseases from polio and tuberculosis to Ebola and malaria. When that funding disappeared, it left a visible hole in the alliance's capacity to serve the world's poorest countries. Now, with Ebola spreading in Africa and the prospect of future outbreaks looming, the calculus appears to be shifting.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the news warmly, telling AFP that he saw in it not just a course correction but a recognition of mutual interest. "When they declined to finance Gavi we said that it's a mistake, so I'm glad they are reconsidering," he said. He was quick to pivot to a larger point: Tedros hopes Washington might also reconsider its withdrawal from the WHO itself—a more dramatic gesture that began when President Donald Trump handed the UN health agency a one-year withdrawal notice on his first day back in office in January 2025. As the traditional largest donor to the organization, the US absence has been felt, though Tedros emphasized that the financial impact, while real, is not the core issue.
What matters, Tedros argues, is cooperation when crisis strikes. The Ebola outbreak in Africa offers a case study: the virus, he notes, "cannot be addressed without cooperation, and one of the critical organizations for global cooperation is WHO." Even as US policy has shifted, lines of communication remain open. Kennedy and Tedros speak regularly, and the WHO chief stressed that Washington is continuing to finance the Ebola response and that both sides are "communicating at all levels." The message is one of pragmatism from Tedros: the US benefits from participation as much as the global health apparatus does.
Whether this signals a full reversal remains uncertain. But the re-engagement with Gavi is a crack in the door—a recognition that in a world where viruses travel as fast as planes, isolation is a luxury no nation can afford. Tedros's bet is that Washington will eventually see that returning to both Gavi and the WHO is not about ideology or altruism, but about the kind of solid ground that only global cooperation can provide. "I believe they will come back," he said, "because they benefit from it: it's in their best interest."